During her lifetime, Gina Berriault never knew champions like Oprah Winfrey or the Coen Brothers who could bring recognition and renown for her talents. Instead, she quietly went about her character studies, painting vivid still lifes in language neither too spare nor too florid, both gifting and disarming readers with the simple powers of acute observation.
The stories assembled in this posthumous collection bear witness to Berriault's philosophy: "Short stories and some short novels are close to poetry--with the fewest words they capture the essence of a situation, of a human being. It's like trying to pin down an eternal moment." Berriault's characters are determined, sometimes doggedly so, in the face of tragedy and despair. There is anxiety surrounding a critic's much anticipated arrival and departure ("A Dream of Fair Women"). An acquaintance struck up by a homeless visitor unravels a librarian's closely guarded universe of knowledge ("The Infinite Passion of Expectation"). A young girl, the outsider looking in, finds idyllic realization in the guise of palm trees, lawns and the possession of a piano, only to understand that her economic circumstances will never allow her to experience these "Stolen Pleasures." Berriault's characters are the faces we confront on a daily basis.
Despite her relative anonymity, Berriault's four novels and three story collections earned many grants and awards. Women in Their Beds, the last short story collection before her death in 1999, won the Rea Award and PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. This current collection cements Berriault in the pantheon of the American greats. --Nancy Powell